In the restaurant business, components of individual food items or of complete meals (e.g., hamburger patties; broiled beef; fried chicken; etc.) are often pre-cooked at cooking locations around the restaurant's kitchen. These pre-cooked food components are then assembled into completed food items or meals before presentation to the customer. During the final assembly process, various toppings or side-dishes are served on or beside the pre-cooked components, and the toppings or side-dishes are melted or browned before the food items or meals are served. For example, sliced or grated cheese is often melted onto a pre-cooked hamburger patty to make a cheeseburger, or whipped potatoes are browned after being added as a side-dish to a plate of fried chicken. Together with melting or browning the top surfaces of the food items or complete meals, it is often necessary or desirable to simultaneously heat the serving plate or other assembly on which the food items or meals are served in order to provide the perception of a fresh-cooked hot meal. For example, Mexican restaurants typically serve fajitas on a sizzling iron skillet. Ovens used to perform the finishing functions of melting or browning the toppings of the food items before they are served can be referred to as "thermal finishers".
One existing system for performing these functions employs a plate heater to heat the serving plate, and a gas over-fired broiler known in the restaurant industry as a "Salamander" broiler to perform the final finishing (i.e., the melting or browning) of the toppings or side dishes. This system, however, has significant disadvantages. The over-fired gas broiler generates a tremendous amount of heat (e.g., 40,000 to 60,000 BTUs), much of which is wasted since the Salamander broiler must be left on continuously since it takes a significant period of time to warm up, even though the broiler is used for only a fraction of the time that it is turned on. Also, since the Salamander broiler is open to the kitchen, the high heat output level of the broiler heats up the kitchen and requires the installation of kitchen exhaust fans in order to exhaust the excess heat. Thus, the Salamander broiler is a wasteful system for melting toppings and warming serving plates.
Another existing system employs a conveyor oven which must also be turned on all of the time, and is relatively slow in comparison to the Salamander broiler. The slow heating time of this alternative type of system is an important disadvantage in, for example, the fast-food industry. In addition, since the entire plate or support assembly passes through the heating cavity via the conveyor, the entire plate including its rim becomes hot such that the plate cannot be efficiently handled by food service workers without using insulated gloves or other methods.
Thus, it would be advantageous to provide an improved oven device for rapid heating of food items which overcomes these and other disadvantages of existing systems. It would be advantageous to provide such an oven device which can be turned on and off as needed, thereby decreasing both energy usage and the amount of heat vented into the kitchen as compared to an oven which must be left on continuously. The decreased amount of heat vented into the kitchen would allow the exhaust hood or other ventilation method needed to exhaust the excess heat to be dispensed with, and would result in savings in air conditioning and ventilation costs. It would also be advantageous to provide an oven device for rapid heating of food items capable of heating the items significantly faster than is possible using existing conveyor oven systems. Also, it would be advantageous to provide an oven device for rapidly heating food items which is capable of heating only a portion of the plate or support assembly for the items such that the plate or support assembly could be efficiently handled by the restaurant's food service workers. For example, it would be advantageous to provide such an oven device wherein the rims of plates holding the food items would not be subjected directly to the heat source and would not be subjected to the radiant heat of the oven. This would allow food service workers to pick up the plates by their rims without using insulated gloves or other methods.